The Howl and the Haul (revised)
by morgyse
Summary: Set immediately after Season 1 (in a simpler AU where werewolves are the only supernatural). Nonromantic. Lydia's wounds necessitate a risky foray into larger werewolf society, where the physician they find struggles to heal herself. Derek works to build the pack into a band of brothers (and sister) but he sows misunderstanding and mentors like he's the world's worst dad.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This story is a massive overhaul of the version of the same story I wrote four years ago. Out of respect for my reviewers of the previous story, I did not want to replace that version with the rewitten chapters. I hope this new offering shares the heart of the previous story, with improved clarity and skill.

Dedication: For FireyDrache, whose maiden voyage into fanfiction reminded me that I wasn't done.

Copyright disclaimer: MTV Music Television and all related titles, logos, and characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc. It could be argued that this work is an infringement of copyright because its purpose is entertainment, and it does not fall under any protected fair use purposes (i.e. "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research"). However, for additional consideration, of the four factors for determining fair use, this work 1.) is published non-commercially, 2.) (okay, I obviously fail #2, because Teen Wolf is a creative work and I don't need to reproduce any facts contained it in to educate the public), 3.) uses the characters, setting, and tone of the copyrighted work, but the story and text are original to me and do not reproduce any dialogue or video clips from the original, and 4.) as a brief gratis unofficial non-affiliated written work, does not adversely affect the market for or the value of the television series.

Warning: Many of the plants mentioned in this fictional story are in fact poisonous to humans, and contact with them can cause extreme discomfort and death. An excellent description of ways the show makes light of the real chemical effects that the plants have on human bodies can be read on the "Wolfsbane" page of the "teenwolf" Wikia site.

* * *

These all look to you  
to give them their food in due season;  
when you give to them, they gather it up;  
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.  
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;  
when you take away their breath, they die  
and return to their dust. (Psalms 104:27-29)

Cold white light shone on the thin, bleached sheets of Lydia's hospital bed. Slow mechanical beeping marked her vitality, but the gashes that covered her body bled freely still, now days after the attack.

She slept, and her consciousness lingered in a time that was neither day or night. In the dream she would have called for help, because she needed to get a move-on, start the clock again, but something told her that there was not a soul to hear her for a million miles in every direction. She waited silently, holding perfectly still.

That pleased her only visitor just fine. Allison needed the quiet to think about what it meant to have a relative who was a murderer. She needed to work out how to grieve the death of that same relative.

Allison had come not quite immediately when she heard the news, not sure if she even still believed in their friendship. She felt only one thing with complete certainty, and that was that death had won too many times in this town, and it was time for death to have to go home empty-handed. So she stood sentinel over Lydia, because no one else had showed up to protect her from the rest of Allison's family.

Allison's father stalked the halls outside. He had committed long ago to this life of public service, carried out in the shadows. Since then he hadn't waived in his dedication to protecting the human world from the werewolf one - so much so that he would have struggled to explain it to Allison even if he had wanted to, even if she had wanted him to. She had glared him right back out of the room when he tried to come inspect Lydia. Maybe he should have made a pretense of talking to his daughter, but the situation was simple: Lydia had been bitten, and she would either die as a human or revive as a lycanthrope. If she lived, it wouldn't be long before she threatened human life, and when that moment came, Chris Argent was ready to execute her. Unlike his sister, he was waiting for provocation, willing to give her a chance however likely she was to blow it.

At least that's what he had told Allison, but she was skeptical after being lied to so much. So even if Lydia was a real bitch, Allison had a pot of bad coffee to keep herself going, and she was prepared to be the last line of defense.


	2. Chapter 2

The hospital cafeteria was the current headquarters of Lydia's true fans - her pack. Or at least the trio that would become her pack if she survived. Plus Stiles, obviously.

And they didn't care if she was a sweetheart or a psychopath - because she was theirs. Allison didn't know that Lydia's Alpha was keeping watch on them, attuned to any sign of bad news in its many various forms.

Derek was alert but empty handed. His pack had doubled in size overnight, but as humble beginnings go, these were pretty pathetic. Lydia was seemingly stuck - she wasn't dead yet, and even so her change to a werewolf constitution was not complete. Jackson, unable to control the extremes of his emotions even as a human, had spent his first day as a werewolf transforming from wolfman to young man and back again, over and over. While in werewolf form, he fought fiercely. Each time he shifted back into human form he flip-flopped between accusations and apologies. Jackson was too preoccupied with his own new station in life to have asked about Lydia's, but Scott had brought him to the hospital during a lull in his frenzy to check on her. That was when they had discovered the chocolate pudding in the cafeteria contained a mild sedative that seemed to take the edge off him better than wrestling in the Hale house had all morning.

Scott was responsible for managing Jackson, and Derek considered the present success of that arrangement the only good news about their nascent pack life. In his satisfaction, he scowled thoughtfully at Scott, who of course did not interpret the expression as one of approval, and skirted off warily with Stiles to buy five more bowls of pudding.

The four of them sat around a square table, making various additional non-verbal miscommunications, to the sounds of Jackson scraping a plastic spoon along the inside of styrofoam containers and Stiles' rapid typing on his laptop. Scott's mind was beginning to wander back to whether he had missed his only opportunity to return to humanity the other night, but just then he saw Dr. Deaton, his boss at the vet clinic, put his head in at the door of the cafeteria. Deaton and Derek exchanged a quick gesture, and Derek got up immediately, leaving the boys with a glower that rooted them to their seats.

Stiles looked at Scott meaningfully, and Scott concentrated on applying his growing werewolf skills to eavesdrop down the hall, around the corner, and under the door to the stairwell where the two men had gone. But all Deaton was saying was, "I'm sorry, I just don't know." There was Derek's heavy touch on his arm, and then the surprisingly loud reverb of their footsteps. Scott shivered and tried to resume human-range hearing. He shook his head 'no' to Stiles.

"Scott, Derek has no idea what he's doing," Stiles insisted brightly.

"Okay, but Mr. Argent has some things in mind," Scott murmured, impatient and anxious. Even Jackson, seeming to sense his threat, had looked up when they had passed him in the hall.

"But we're not going to let anything happen to Lydia," continued Stiles, undeterred.

"Well, we're not doing anything to help her, either!" The characteristic whine was creeping into Scott's voice, the one he had when his loyalty demanded something his mind didn't know how to provide.

"I, my friend, may have something," Stiles said, concentrating on his screen.

Derek fell heavily back into his chair. "You have to do something for her," Scott nagged.

"Do I?" The muscles in Derek's face tightened. "What should I be doing?"

"You have to help her, you know, to finish...becoming like us...so she can get better!"

"She's supposed to just change on her own," Derek snapped. "Everybody I ever saw - ," he looked around to see if anyone was near them, "- get bitten, they just changed on their own, or..." He spread his hands pitilessly to indicate the alternative.

"Well, we're not going to let that happen to her. You have to think of something to help her," Scott whispered, a little wild.

"Guys, I think I may have something," Stiles announced over his laptop.

"Scott, you are going to have to start accepting that in our world - "

"She's my friend, she's - she's - I mean, don't you feel - "

"Yes, of course I can feel her, but they don't always make it - "

"How can you - "

" _Guys_." Stiles put a hand on both their shoulders, but withdrew immediately when two sets of unnatural eyes flashed at him, one pair ice blue and the other yellow as the harvest moon. "Okay, let's tone it down and listen to me, because I am apparently the only one here with problem solving skills." He slid a hand under his laptop.

"Stiles, there's nothing on the internet that's going to help with our- "

"Ah hem! Apparently some of your kind are a teensy bit more hip to the 21st Century," he said, turning the laptop to face them, "because I just found the WebMD of Were. WereMD. WebMD dot com slash fur. Web - "

Derek snatched the computer away and peered at the columns of tiny print.

"What in...?"

A seeming encyclopedia filled the page with a chaotic mix of definitions and diagrams. They spanned the gamut from medicinal ("When topically applied, the tincture has a profound effect upon blockages.") to mechanical (showing how to put the components of a ham radio together) to botanical ("All members of the Nightshade family will lend a fortifying presence to the sleep of occult beings.") The subjects were cacophonous, but certainly a large amount was supernatural information.

"What makes you think this isn't just some crackpot human who's - "

But a drawing toward the bottom of the page caught Derek's attention and seemed to answer his question all at once. It was a map of Northern California that looked like it had been drawn on a napkin and scanned in. Seemingly all the counties had been laid out wrong and mis-labelled, because right where Butte County should be was simply the name "Hale."

Derek's eyes darted back and forth until he concluded, "This is a territory map," with such wide-eyed incredulity that it was all Stiles could do to keep from laughing. But he knew his case would be lost if he didn't press on.

"Yeah, not as sneaky as you usually play it, but I'm thinking it's legit. And so look at the 'Work With Me' page," he said reaching over to click the mouse.

A glamor shot of a scrawny, dark haired hippie accompanied a long list of skills and professions, mostly as represented on the previous page, but also encompassing meteorology, photography, taxidermy, and the offer of "I'll build you a website!" in flashing green text, next to a white square that said "Javascript Error."

"I think she's our best bet."

"Stiles, we don't even know if - "

"Look, Derek, it says 'Occult Healing and Mythic Diagnostics' which is exactly what we need right now."

"This isn't how we - "

"Dude. It's time to call in the big guns. The object of my unreciprocated affections is lying in here dying and no one in the building can do what she needs done for her. Frankly, if you knew what to do, you would have done it by now, and you haven't. It's okay to feel ashamed; real men cry, you know?" Derek squinted into the whirlwind, but Stiles carried on. "You know what else real men do? They ask for help."

"Help?" Derek repeated. "Help? Did you notice a welcoming committee when Scott was bit? Have you seen me going off to congratulation parties for graduating to Alpha? Our kind - they don't help. And if they did, there'd be strings attached that we couldn't handle. I don't know what this is," he indicated the website,"but it's not our answer."

There had been a soft ding as Derek had been speaking, and Stiles spun the laptop back toward himself.

"I think you're wrong, man, because she just emailed me back to say we can pick her up in Redding tonight."


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles' online connection had directed them to pick her up from the house of an Alpha whose name Derek recognized from his childhood. To prevent any perceived threat their entry into his territory would cause, Derek had grudgingly looked Lonny up in the phone book and called ahead.

It had been years since he had interacted with any werewolves outside of his own family, but he forced himself to make the kind of conversation that he knew a crotchety, lethal middle-aged man would want to hear from an upstart neighbor - paying his respects, feigning a nostalgia for brutal yesteryears, treading carefully to not offer even a hint of a challenge, and yet neither letting himself sound weak. They got off the line with a 'Well, come on over tonight then,' and a 'Hey, and we'll hope to see you real soon in Beacon Hills.' When he knew the line was dead, he exhaled sharply to release his tension and separate himself from the mask of strategic collegiality.

Scott and Jackson were giving him dubious glances from across the nurses' station, like he'd just given his acceptance speech as mayor. "When did you get all friendly?" Jackson sneered.

Derek sized him up, asking himself how Jackson would learn to walk the path of discipline - to do what was necessary, rather than just what he wanted to do. "Your training starts now," he decided, turning on his heel and indicating he was to be followed.

"I don't believe this guy," Jackson complained to Scott as they started after Derek.

"He just doesn't listen," Scott agreed.

"Sure, he's totally fine to be schmoozing while everything is falling apart. Why should he be bothered? I mean, I should probably be in one of these beds, and he's talking about training?"

In the parking lot, Derek explained he was putting Scott "in charge" of their territory for the night - which pained him a bit, as they had never even walked the boundary together. That duty, which Derek had performed so many times with his father, would have to be delayed again. There was no way for Scott to rightly interpret Derek's glaring at him as regret and so he assumed it meant Derek didn't have much faith in his ability to follow through.

"How come Scott's always the boss of me?" Jackson asked, though to be fair, it was more the sugar rush from the pudding asking.

"You're coming with me," Derek replied. He thought the fear that entered Jackson's eyes was healthy.

Jackson thought he was being bribed for his friendship when Derek bought him not only a burger, but also a beer to drink in the car. However, as most of Jackson's affections had been bought some way or another, it made his day feel a little more normal. Derek wasn't looking to bond though - the red meat was to strengthen Jackson's ability to modulate his own mood, and the liquor was to dull his acute wolf senses to a point where he could use them and not be overwhelmed.

Derek took advantage of Jackson's momentary good will toward him to request that Jackson roll down the window as they sped along the highway. Derek asked him to listen to the forest beside them and to look into its shadows, as the sunset cast golden pools of light between the trees. By the time the lights of Redding were obscuring the little stars overhead, Jackson was hearing - though not fully comprehending - the beating of moth wings.

They parked the car in a lonely part of town. Jackson suddenly felt self-conscious about his rich-boy upbringing and asked if Derek had brought him here as bait.

"Bait for what? Look, Jackson, just don't talk to anybody while we're here. Don't tell them...anything about you - or the rest of us, okay?"

"Why, are they humans?"

"No!"

Jackson considered the alternative. "Are they dangerous?"

"All I'm saying is, if you provoke an animal, you get a fight. So don't say something that's going to get you in trouble and don't...don't smell anybody." Jackson's lip curled in disgust, unable to deal with these useless instructions.

The house they were aiming for had its front door wide open and swinging in the breeze. Derek led the way up a winding staircase, the steps groaning under his weight, then sighing under Jackson's. The door at the top opened on a small apartment, and before they had reached the landing, Derek's senses let him know exactly what to expect. Jackson on the other hand was blown away. The front room was made intimate by werewolves everywhere; they were arguing, grinding, laughing, heckling, and leering. The smells of sweat, sex, and substances were heavy in the air. Half the lightbulbs were smashed and furniture was wrecked. It was a werewolf kingdom.

Derek hesitated on the threshold, and Jackson collided with his shoulder in eagerness. A woman smoking a cheap cigarette noticed them and approached, her mouth smiling, her heavily made-up eyes not.

"Hale, isn't it? Dad's waiting for you in the kitchen." She turned her attention to Jackson. "And we'll keep this one company for you while you're talking your big talk." She threw an arm around his shoulder and drew him over to her friends. Derek knew better than to argue. He headed toward the florescent lights of kitchen and mentally cranked his testosterone to 11.

The phone call had been nothing compared to this. A handful of Alphas made the kitchen cramped with their wide bodies and big personalities. For no reason at all, the conversation was carried on practically at shouting level. When Derek walked in they shouted accolades about his family. They shouted about remembering when he was born. They shouted when they found out one woman at the table didn't recognize Derek by name. "Derek here is the last of the Hales," one shouted.

"Not anymore," Derek shouted, donning a cocky smile. "In Beacon Hills, we'll bite 'em cussed before we bite the dust!" It was a tired old adage about turning humans, but the Alphas thought it was uproarious coming from the younger generation. As the laughter was dying down, a couple of them studied him seriously for the first time. Just how big was his pack?

There was a little suspicion in the voice of the Alpha who asked, "What brings you to town after all this time, Mr. Hale?"

Derek stuck his chin out - the crux of the evening was getting in and out without revealing how sick Lydia was. "Now that we're done with repairs," he lied, "I want some whitetail mounts for the house. I need a good taxidermist, so I'm borrowing Maria."

"You can't borrow what nobody owns," one of the Alphas said grimly. It put Derek on alert - with all these Alphas peaceably gathered, she could be anyone's Beta. Who was being insulted? But no one showed signs of shame or rage, and the cryptic statement hung there in the silence that followed.

Someone changed the subject to an accident in the train yard, where a number of their Betas worked, and then they were on to boasting about who had the chromiest vintage car.

"You'll find Maria out in the back lot," Lonny eventually confided to Derek at a normal volume. Was that relief in his face? Derek excused himself, with the promise to see them the next time one of their kids graduated from high school. He allowed himself to take the steps of the fire escape slowly, preparing for the evening's second act.


	4. Chapter 4

A handful of deadbeats lounged around cars up on cinder blocks in the yard. Little clouds of smoke poured out of their mouths as they talked. Over the barking of Doberman Pinschers and the rattling of chain link fencing, one of them could be heard tinkering furiously, bent over the engine of a car made mostly of rust.

The presence of an Alpha shut them all up, and a few even bolted for cover, revealing the tension that ran below the surface in this gathering of many packs. The sudden silence must have alerted the tinkerer to his presence. "Hale?" She yelled and had to make two attempts to straighten up, as her earring was caught on something the first time.

He started to cross the yard to her, then remembered he now commanded the rank where Betas came to him. As she got closer, he saw her eyes were sunk deep in her face. Her scrawny frame seemed especially rickety in-person, with the jangling beads and keys she wore threatening to knock her to one side and then the other.

She reached out to shake his hand and offered him a used-car-salesman smile. "Maria Santiago." As she said her name, she held out a wordy business card, which from a glance, Derek could see listed all the qualifications from her website.

"I just care about this one." With a cautious glance at the crew ringing the yard, he showed the card back to her again, putting his thumbnail underneath the word 'Healer.' "What'll it cost me?"

"Just...put me up and feed me," she laughed nervously, worried her price might be too high. "And I was hoping to drive my car back with you, but that's not looking likely."

"Your car?"

"Yeah, you know Lonny's been so nice. He said if I could get this sweetheart running again, she's mine."

"You know about cars?"

"Well, not really, I mean, just what you can learn at the library." Somewhere deep in the car, an audible dribble began.

"My pack will take care of your transportation," Derek asserted.

"Your pack? They're old enough to drive?" Her skepticism suddenly made Derek's brain run through all the worst-case scenarios he had considered during this vulnerable errand. Before he could think of something to say, she turned back to her car and pulled an enormous duffle bag out of the back seat. Digging through its overflowing contents, she found a small cloth sachet. She walked back, seemed to consider how much of the distance between them she wanted to close, then tossed it to him instead of putting it in his hand.

"Leaves of the neem tree hide that fresh puppy scent they've been getting on you," she said in a low voice. Derek sniffed, and indeed, lost track of the scents he recognized as Jackson's and Lydia's that clung to him. "Don't handle that too much though - the oil causes temporary infertility."

"Maria's always got good advice - is she saying you're pregnant or you need an oil change?" An orange-tanned Beta was peering down at them from the fire escape, spurning Maria with some enjoyment. Derek tensed, then decided the woman hadn't actually heard much of their conversation.

"And what do you care?" Maria challenged, but with a bit of a wail.

"I don't care at all," she said, starting down the stairs, preening under the attention of the whole yard, "but Jonas is sick of your advice, and your bad influence on the kids, and your lotions and potions. Says he wants you out by morning."

"He already kicked me out last week," Maria answered sourly, with a quick glance at Derek, who had pocketed the sachet and stood to the side with the rest of crowd. With his arms crossed over his chest, he looked like a bronze statue in the park surrounded by vagrants.

"Yeah, and I surely hope the door didn't hit you on the ass on the way out." Maria's antagonist flashed a yellow grin in her concern. "No, girl, he wants you out. Out of Redding. Or we run you out. You should keep that in mind before you start associating with the riff raff, Mr. Derek Hale." The woman cleared her nose and turned to face Derek.

An idea was crystallizing in Derek's mind. "Seems like your Alpha wouldn't like to hear you threatened like that," he rumbled, directing himself to Maria, assuring himself this wasn't going to lead to a fight, if only because everyone in the yard was too high to care. .

They erupted in giggles at his words. Derek was still. Maria frowned miserably at the ground.

"Go on, show him, girl," whooped the other Beta, falling in with the rest.

Maria fiddled with the colorful kerchief that was tied high on her neck. Her eyes were low, and she slouched toward Derek - if she'd been in wolf form, her tail would have been tucked. She came close and showed him her bare neck. She was offering her story - the wordless version.

"If we'll be working together," she mumbled with the barest trace of her saleswoman air, "I guess you should know..." Derek leaned in and took the briefest whiff. The yard hushed again, waiting for his reaction.


	5. Chapter 5

They stepped apart, her thumping heart relieved to get some distance from such a potentate. Maria's scent told a sad story, but Derek was unshocked. Really, he couldn't wait to get home to the secluded forest.

The crowd was waiting for his reaction. "Okay, so you're lone," he said in a flat voice. She had no Alpha. "I'm sure your new Alpha is attending to other business and will come for you once he or she's ready." Knowing glances were exchanged around them, but Derek ignored them. He had been this way for about a month after his sister died and before his uncle had asserted his authority.

"I told myself that for the first six months," she said, retying her kerchief. Involuntarily, Derek's face twitched just a bit. After six months lone, most of their kind faded and died. Then she answered his next question. "My Alpha has been dead for four years."

So she was a body that walked around without a head, a tree that stood upright even though it was severed from the root. A kind of gagging growl squeezed through Derek's throat. This broke the tension - all the creeps in the yard tittered and, now satisfied, returned to their previous conversations.

Maria's best shot at a graceful exit from Redding was no doubt about to turn himself right back around and leave for Beacon Hills without her. "Being an abomination, you know, has no effect on my ability to be productive," she confided. A loud crack interrupted her renewed pitch, and one of the Betas jumped up from where he was sitting in surprise.

"It was Scooter," his neighbor accused in a sing-song voice.

"Man, that was my djembe!" Maria cried. Someone kicked the wooden drum and it rolled to a stop at her feet, a split clearly visible running down the full length of the instrument.

She was quiet for a while, staring at the ruined drum. "I always was the weakest link at the drum circle," she reflected. She seemed to be on the verge of an insight, or maybe just retracing a familiar line of thinking. "It's only been since my Alpha died that I took up music," she said, "and...you know...the auto mechanics, weaving, web design, accounting..."

"You forgot healing," Derek added, not having let Lydia slip from his mind throughout all the evening's chatter.

"No, the - the medicine-making was something I started a long time ago. My Alpha's lady was a botany professor before he bit her." She scratched her nose. Then her cheeks pulled her face into a smile and she said, "But it's a big world out there, once you have the freedom to discover more of it."

Derek didn't smile back. Maria looked away, then said decisively, "Whatever her case is, you should have some angelica on hand. Humans say it wards off evil spirits."

She knelt by a big clump of what he had thought were weeds growing beside a brick outbuilding. She started ripping up long stems by the roots and held them out to him as she went.

"What do you say it does?" he asked warily, taking hold of the flowers. As their earthy fragrance filled his nose, he felt his head clear from the revulsion that had rocked him.

Maria gave a sort of sad smile. "It just enhances what already is - it makes a pure heart steady and a wicked heart bold. Whatever she's like, she'll need it."

She continued pulling up the flowers in silence until Derek's hands encircled a big bouquet. Then she undid the piece of twine holding her ponytail in order to tie the stalks together. She noticed the pale clusters of the angelica flowers reflecting a glow under his chin. He noticed a couple clumps of her hair fall out and slide to the ground. As she tightened the twine around the flowers, she leaned in to whisper, with a bit of trepidation, "My Alpha was...prolific...with biting humans to grow our pack - and then sacrificing them in turf wars and then biting more humans. I may be an amateur at everything else, but I've seen the Change go wrong in every gruesome way. That's why I can help with your new puppy."

"And you need a ticket out of here." Derek inferred.

"I'll move on at the first sign she's improving," she swore.

He had made up his mind. "Where's your stuff?"

"If you carry those, and..." She went back to the car and hoisted out a stainless steel firkin.

"Planning a kegger?" Derek asked with a grimace, shifting the angelica to one hand and wrapping his other arm around the firkin.

"Not quite as much fun. If you feel that start to leak, let me know right away," she warned. She collected a yellowed airline employee handbook and the transmitting end of a weather balloon from where they had fallen on the ground, hoisted all the duffle bag's contents over her shoulder, and stepped over the broken djembe to come with him.

She didn't say any goodbyes.

They found Jackson waiting for them, leaning up against the car and keeping a twitchy look out.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said before Derek could ask what had driven him out of the house.

Jackson and Maria made gauche attempts to insist the other take the front seat, which is where she wound up. Derek wasn't sure if that had been the right decision, but there would be plenty of time to talk politics with Jackson later.

Derek was a smooth driver. Maria lay her head against the cool window and dozed, dreaming that she sat at a workbench in a beautiful greenhouse, grinding two ingredients to a paste, while people argued outside.

Jackson's snores woke her, and she mentally cataloged those ingredients - benzoin resin and bolete mushrooms. She knew she had seen her old Alpha's mate, Nancy, pair them together, but to cure what? She spent the rest of the drive prodding her memory to recall the day, the illness, the wolf it had saved. She enjoyed the dip into the past; she was so tired of facing the abyss that was the future.


	6. Chapter 6

"Visiting hours don't start til 9," Derek mused aloud, unsatisfied, as the hospital road signs appeared.

"Oh, we can't...?" Maria began.

"Let's just try," he muttered thoughtfully.

He came into the turn fast and his tires squealed a little. Jackson woke up in the back seat, and started moaning nervously, as he had been doing that morning when he was about to lose control of the wolf. His canine scent began to fill the car.

Derek threw his phone at Maria. "Call Scott now." Given that there were only about 5 numbers in the phone, it was easy for her to follow through. Derek yelled his instructions, and Scott was there to meet them 30 seconds later as they pulled into the parking lot, quite out of breath. Before the car had rolled to a stop, Jackson was out, and beat Scott to the treeline just in time before a miserable howl rent the night. Derek and Maria stood by the car, watching where the boys had entered the woods. However, Scott seemed to have a handle on the situation.

Maria noticed Derek give a loving touch to the upholstery of his car's interior, then on her next inhale noticed something not right.

"What is that?" She asked with growing suspicion.

Derek turned his head. He'd been trying to work out logistics of what they were about to do, but saw she was sniffing. "Wormwood," she whispered. "Mountain ash." It took him a couple breaths to understand what she meant. Derek was almost used to the smell of the protective powders their local hunter kept on his person.

He would have liked to take another moment to reflect on how unusual their situation was, that even this bonafide weirdo they were depending upon was freaked out by it. But Chris Argent had rolled up alongside them in his SUV and was calling out insistently, "Is there going to be a problem tonight?"

A guttural groaning sound began with such lack of force that at first Derek thought a distant hospital generator had kicked on. He quickly realized it was Maria's defensive reply to Argent, and the thought 'two against one' crossed his mind before he knew what he was thinking. That kind of team reckoning should be reserved for the pack.

"Keep your family out of my way tonight," he warned Argent.

"Then you'd better keep your family in tonight," Argent replied, but drove off with only a smug smile in Maria's direction. Derek began to worry about Scott and Jackson.

"You let a hunter - just - he's just around?" Maria broke in, "Making threats?" Her growl, like the buzzing of a single bee, surged at the thought and petered out again.

Well, that was irritating. "We have a sort of arrangement," Derek snapped, and started toward the utilities side of the building.

"Wait, my stuff!" She seemed to have a lot of stuff that needed sorted through before they could leave the car. She gave Derek the angelica, found a few amber glass medicine bottles at the bottom of her duffle bag, had to remove her dissertation-length essay on the history of amateur radio, underneath that found a smaller bag to carry things in, and was finally ready to go.

Beacon Hills was the kind of little town where people don't always lock their doors, and they brought that thinking to work too. For the locked doors they did encounter, a few flicks of a credit card against a latch bolt had Derek and Maria successfully entering without breaking. They were soon in Lydia's room.

Maria experienced a wave of panic once there, and she lost her balance. Why was this happening to her? Was Lydia's uneven breathing unsettling her? Was she afraid of the dark? She wished the moon was shining in the window, falling across Lydia's bed, to christen her in its cool light and claim her for their kind. But the darkness was deep and lonely. She almost jumped out of her skin when Derek flipped the lights on. He grabbed her by her skeletal upper arm and held on until her feet were steady under her.

"Get it together," he whispered, as calm as a yoga instructor.

In the harsh lighting, liver spots were apparent on Maria's young face and hands, like someone had splashed tea on her. His stomach felt uneasy if he let himself think about how thin her skin felt in his hand.

She pulled away and began examining the equipment, the table of get-well gifts, and the patient herself. She asked him some questions about Lydia that he answered. She asked him some questions about music therapy that he didn't answer. She asked him a question about the power grid that he didn't answer. She touched Lydia's wrists and temples, then washed the blood and plasma off her hands. She took her bottles out the bag and put them back in again. She got light-headed and crawled into a chair.

"When did you eat last?" He asked, weighing his chances of running into the night nurse on the way to the cafeteria. "You need a steak, but there should at least be turkey sandwiches -"

"I can't keep much down these days besides tofu and broth," she admitted, "but...um...get some - I have an idea - get some tomatoes."

When he got back from his errand, she hid the bowl of tomatoes behind all the bouquets, and swapped their angelica for a vase of sunflowers.

"I'm done here tonight. I need some things from the forest, then we can come back in the morning."

"What did you do?" He asked skeptically.

"The smell of the Nightshade will make her sleep more restful. She'll need her strength tomorrow. The Helianthus - well, it might not have made a difference, but I want it out of the room to sort of - don't laugh - mark our territory. Signal the universe that this one is for us, a child of the night."

"Is that even a real thing?" He asked, as he closed the door on Lydia's rhythmic inhale and exhale. Maria dumped her sunflowers in a trash can.

"Honestly, I - I don't know. It might be superstitious, might not be. Do - do you howl at the moon because it's beautiful? Is that real? Do you give the bite because it was gifted to you? Or are those just empty words we say? If you - if you skin a rabbit without shedding a drop of its blood, will your Alpha find you? I mean these are just things we - "

"I'm not familiar with that last one," he said as they made their way down the stairwell.

"Yeah, well, my old pack members gave me a bunch of bullshit advice when they all got picked up by other Alphas and I had been blowing in the wind that first year." Derek felt his lip curl in involuntary disgust. A cut flower shouldn't stay green for a year.

He couldn't stop thinking about it. At the exit door, he turned and faced her. "How are you alive?"

It wasn't a friendly, getting-to-know-you, concerned-for-your-well-being sort of question. It was a have-I-made-a-huge-mistake, what-evil-have-I-brought-down-on-my-household sort of question.

She experienced a flush of shame, then the familiar sense of inevitability she got when she paraded out her abnormal secrets. "I need a drink."

He let her walk on, but if he thought they were headed to a bar, he was surprised when she drew the firkin out of the car. She unstoppered the bung and held it out to him. He saw the street lights glint off a white viscous liquid that smelled like a dead mouse in carrot soup. She tipped it back and chugged, not without gagging at first.

When she came up for air, she saw he was still waiting for answers. "Just a little nibble on a water hemlock can kill a full grown steer," she began. "It'd take a little more for an Alpha, still deadly. Don't ask me how I discovered that a pint of this concentrate a day keeps me upright."

He was silent for a while, then said, "How long had you been in Redding?"

"What? Like five months. Why?"

"Why didn't you ask Lonny to bring you into his pack?"

"You hear my whole story and that's - "

"Seems like becoming someone's Beta again would have saved you all this trouble." He made it sound easy, the practical choice.

She felt ashamed again. "That's a two way street and you know it. I mean -" she felt mortified, but preceded, "- look at me! No one wants this."

He made no response, and as her words echoed in her own mind, they seemed to self-affirm. They were true. He got in the car, and she stood beside it dully.

Derek's voice floated out to her. "Get in." Something about his tone made it sound like an offer instead of a command.

She settled in the seat and closed her eyes. "You asked before," he rumbled, "why there's a hunter living side-by-side with us. So you must not be from around here. But this is the Hale family story..."

The whole time he talked her mind was relentlessly asking itself why he would trust her with this tale of woe, the fabric of his life woven together with his family's killers. And the whole time she listened, her face belying respect for his family's losses, sacrifices, and wiles, the more he congratulated himself on being an excellent judge of character.

The sheets of her radio essay floated around them in the swirling breeze as Derek talked. He noticed; she didn't.


	7. Chapter 7

The Hale house still conveyed a welcoming appeal with its wide sloping roof and what was left of the chimney. Maria stared fixedly at it as they pulled up the drive, in awe of any place that gathered loved ones to each other.

"So this is where the villagers burned your castle," she expressed mournfully.

"Yeah, villagers are like that."

His words reminded her of a long-forgotten plan. "University of Oregon has this folklore degree." It felt so crushing at that moment not to already be there, doing that, right now. "I've thought some about going there."

"You seem like you have too much going on to add classes," Derek suggested, though with no mockery in his tone.

"Yeah, but I could cut back on some other things - "

"How will you decide?"

"...I don't know. Everything - it seems so important. Nothing should go by the wayside." She squirmed a little with discomfort. To him, the answer was obvious. She was a wolf, through and through. She wanted to serve in some way and to serve well, skillfully. He was already convinced she would serve their pack well and cure Lydia before the week was out. He was planning to buy her a bus ticket anywhere she wanted to go in order to square up. If he was her, he'd keep it simple - focus on what he already knew and grow it. Lord knew that's what he was doing back in Beacon Hills, rebuilding a pack.

He pulled to a stop in front of the house. She wouldn't let him carry anything this time. Some drill bits and needles fell out of her duffle bag, sprinkling the ground behind her.

"You can stay in the dungeon," he winced, opening the industrial door, realizing their old name for this room was less humorous following his imprisonment in it not a week before. Since he didn't want to ever see it again, she would have complete privacy. But she didn't need to know all that. "It's not much, but it's still got the utilities hooked up." She dropped her bag down next to the couch. Once she was inside, luxury hotels or bunkers like this all felt like a temporary perch, places that weren't hers.

"It should be getting light in 5 hours."

"I'll go forage for what I need then." Knowing her own limited capacity for too many consecutive hours of sleep or wakefulness, she added, "We could use the front door at the hospital next time."

"Okay, be ready at 9." Derek was planning to roam the woods for the next couple hours to keep an ear out for Scott and Jackson. The thought of a little sleep after that was welcome.

When she was alone, Maria slicked her dry, scabbed skin from head to toe with olive oil and lavender she kept in her bag, seeking a little clean relief. She crawled back inside her wrap-around skirt and patchwork jacket, rinsed her mouth with salt water (though the sores never seemed to go away) and tucked herself in.

* * *

She dreamed she was overtaken by a coughing fit. The loud whistling coughs pierced the air and steam was pouring out of her mouth. Derek held out his arms, not to embrace her, but to brace her. Between them, the moment could pass, and she was undisturbed as a freight train crossing the road, with two protective gates on either side of her. She stayed in this arc of privacy until her cough exhausted itself. Then she remembered, because some things are slow in dreams, that she was too close, probably filling his nose with the acrid scent of death that clung to an unnatural lone being like herself.

Instead, Derek grabbed her and spun her around, showing her his pack, chasing foxes together in the woods, Jackson, Lydia, himself, and the brown haired boy Scott. With them was a shadow behaving like a person - it pointed Lydia away from a patch of wolfsbane, and it grabbed Scott's hoodie to keep him from falling down a slope.

"I need you because we need you," Derek growled in her ear.

How many times had she fantasized about finding her new pack? How many days had she woke up and forced herself to make a to do list, to hitch, to talk to people, to take her medicine? And all the while just pissing away the time, waiting for this. But instead of gratitude, what came out of her mouth were conditions for surrender. "I will need certain assurances that accommodations will be made for -"

"No!" His voice reverberated because they were in a box canyon now. The sky was an angry pink above them. "Only the pack have a say in pack matters." She managed to break free of his arms and fell in the dust at his feet. "I told you what I want," he said evenly. "It's time to say yes or no."

His eyes were calm, his fists controlled, his girth was powerful, his mind was ambitious, and his heart was always with those under his authority. This path wasn't perfect, but it was good.

"I run with you," she whispered, unsure if her tears were happy or sad.

Satisfied, Derek raised her to her feet. He unrestrained his wolf snout, and bit her arm. As the blood began soaking her sleeve, she felt light headed and more weak than usual. She gripped his neck and hung on tight, shifting to wolf enough to finally sink her sharp teeth into his shoulder.

As their blood began pooling on the ground, they both gasped and shook, gripping each other's arms with claws out. With the moon rising overhead, Derek felt another piece of himself leave his jurisdiction. With the stars bright in their places, Maria felt arms around her for the first time in years.

* * *

Maria woke at dawn. She wanted to dwell in the dream. One of the freedoms of being lone was knowing that her dreams belonged to her alone, with no Alpha's thoughts infiltrating them. As she ventured outside to see what medicinal plants she could find in this dewy forest, she let her heart escape back to the feelings of belonging.


	8. Chapter 8

Derek was used to sleeping on the floor. He was a heavy sleeper, despite the uncertainties that had dogged his entire adult life. He always woke up with full use of his senses, without the tension that had made his sister sloppy when she was Alpha.

He found Maria sitting on the stairs of his porch, all her worldly possessions packed and ready to go. The morning was heating up, and she had peeled off a couple layers, now just wearing a wrinkled white t-shirt and black jeans. She smelled like she had rolled in the forest floor, so even with so much of her skin exposed, the loneness in her scent was harder to pick up. There was something else, though. "You catch a fox this early?" He asked by way of greeting.

"I chased a fox," she admitted, glancing up at him and away quickly, but with a hint of a smile. It had been good sport. "They're my favorites - those big bouncy tails." Derek shared her preference, but didn't say so. He reflected that he still had not shown Scott any of the kind of joy that werewolves got up to. At this particular moment, that seemed like an opportunity to look forward to, instead of a backlog to attend to.

Jackson emerged onto the porch as well. Derek had found him last night curled up asleep inside a lacrosse goal, with Scott exhausted and lounging nearby in the bleachers. He had sent Scott home to sleep and brought Jackson back to the Hale house.

"What's in the bag?" Jackson asked, adjusting his jacket.

"Bolete mushrooms," she answered holding open the lip of a burlap sack she used for foraging. "Luckily I had some bezoin resin already, so we have everything we need for the chelation."

"Yeah, whatever," Jackson said and straightened up, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

"What's it do?" Derek was still paying attention.

"It cures mild mercury poisoning that...can hold back the change." The uncertainty in her voice didn't come from doubting her ingredients, but she surely hoped they wouldn't ask what made her suspect the undetectable diagnosis in the first place. She didn't think her word went far with them, and saying she had had a brainstorm in a dream wasn't going to impress anyone.

"Where would she have gotten mercury poisoning?" Derek ruminated aloud.

That was an easy one. "Mercury can be amalgamated in jewelry, dental fillings, laxatives - "

Jackson started laughing, saying, "Popular girls never use any of those."

"You've seen it work?" Derek pressed.

"Yes," she averred, and wondered what parts of the story to tell him, about the laborer who rehabbed old houses who her Alpha had bitten, his long suffering before her Alpha finally let him be treated, his full recovery but profound resentment in the years that followed.

"Let's go then," Derek said, satisfied.

He touched the small of her back as he gestured her into the car. She made herself keep moving, even though for a second that spot had felt luminous and the rest of her skin seemed cold and dead by comparison.

The leaves whispered in the trees circling the house. They really were out in the boonies here, far from the opportunities to pursue her hobbies that even a small city like Redding afforded her. But something in her wanted to say yes to this place, before she was even sure what question it was asking.

Jackson saw Derek scowl and worried about how he would avoid Derek's next verbal flogging about self-control and exposing "their kind," like he'd had to hear all the way back the Hale house last night.

Derek's eyebrows were knit together because he was mulling over a sharp contrast. How easy it had been to bring Jackson into their pack; he was, after all, a human who came looking for Derek. And before that, when Derek took his uncle's life, Peter's two Betas, Scott and Lydia, had simply erupted upon Derek's consciousness, two electrons in orbit around him. But to co-opt a wolf that had allegiance elsewhere - or at least was supposed to - was a matter of consent. Derek was running through scenarios of how he could ask Maria to submit to his authority and become his Beta until his death or hers freed her from his pack. Would it be cheesy to bring a gift?

He had made up his mind that she would balance out their ragtag pack with what she had to offer and who she was - a wolf who who knew their ways, even if she had strayed from them. If any of their kind from Redding decided to mosey on down for the weekend to follow up on all the puppy scents Derek and Jackson carried in, he wanted an adult Beta at his side.

But more importantly, he was building something here - a family, an army, a kingdom - to stand together for the long haul. Invitations weren't exclusive, but complete dedication was non-negotiable. The high standards were to keep the pack at their peak, not to keep new members out. The bigger, the better. A smile even played over Derek's lips at the thought of being surrounded by a throng of his Betas, a second family. It would grow one by one. The table was ready, and today he would set another place.


End file.
